FS100 curiosity, ninja & sdhd

[Steve Kalle]

Originally Posted by Jean-Philippe Archibald

Why people expect to see any difference with out of the box footage? Of course there is almost no difference. Do you think a camera manufacturer will sells you a camera with a codec that can't do justice to the rest of the hardware? Not going to happen. Only a few extreme scenario will ends up being better with the external recorder. Getting better performances out of the box shouldn't be the reason to buy an external recorder.

Resons should be:
Different / better suited for a specific application workflow
Redundancy
Stronger codec in case there is a lot of post processing planned
broadcast compliance
etc...

Good explanation.

I believe that many people think the Ninja and other Pro Res recorders automagically add noticeable quality because of the myth that converting to Pro Res for FCP increases the quality of the source footage (technically, you actually degrade the image a very small amount). Also adding to some confusion, the Ninja can only record 8 bits of information because all HDMI outputs on cameras are 8 bit.

Personally, I wouldn't buy anything less than the PIX220 or nanoFlash due to their proven reliability (Sound Devices is known as top quality so the PIX220/240 should be as well) and far better features. The Ninja seems very cheaply made (just look at its accessories).

[David J. Buchanan]

Originally Posted by Steve Kalle

Good explanation.

I believe that many people think the Ninja and other Pro Res recorders automagically add noticeable quality because of the myth that converting to Pro Res for FCP increases the quality of the source footage (technically, you actually degrade the image a very small amount). Also adding to some confusion, the Ninja can only record 8 bits of information because all HDMI outputs on cameras are 8 bit.

Personally, I wouldn't buy anything less than the PIX220 or nanoFlash due to their proven reliability (Sound Devices is known as top quality so the PIX220/240 should be as well) and far better features. The Ninja seems very cheaply made (just look at its accessories).

That is the reason I bought the camera, but I also do a lot of CCing so I kind of need a external recorder. Not mention I need 4:2:2 for broadcast. Anyway, I had to send the Ninja back because it wasn't doing the job in post. The whole reason I bought it was for CCing and easy work flow.

I don't know if the one I got was defective or what, but it seemed to be more work with the interlaced video + pull-down removal bs. In-conclusion, I'm going back to AVCHD until PIX 220 comes out. Oh well.

Oh, one more thing. The Ninja's codec did look a lot better than AVCHD to the naked eye, so I'm not total bashing it.

[John Mitchell]

To me it looked like the Ninja recorded an interlaced frame. Probably didn't have your HDMI output set correctly? Not really sure but shouldn't the FS100 output in native progressive frames so no pulldown required?

[Sean Vincent]

Hi all

I shot a full length feature with a Sony FS100 and an Atomos Ninja in September... i'm editing it right now.

The Pro Res 422 files may look very similar to the AVCHD files at first, but once you start grading, the AVCHD files just fall apart much quicker...severe banding and pixelation occurs once you start pulling the footage about using Colorista or Magic Bullet.

The Pro Res files can take a lot more abuse, especially if you're really pushing the colours.

I'm tracking my progress of the film and the workflow etc on my blog: Sean J Vincent Blog

I would definitely use the FS100 on my next project along with the Ninja... both are fantastic bits of kit.